Tuesday 11 May 2010

In Disguise

Right so as you all know I'm a finalist in the this big old blog competition 'THE MADS' (kindly sponsored by Butlins) and also finalist in the 'Funniest' category (kindly sponsored by John Lewis - very nice company that, have a nice haberdashery department, I like a good rifle through their buttons). This is apparently 'quite a big thing'. And 'quite big things' tend to attract the public gaze.

Oh hell.

I've been contacted about 'going to the press'.

Gulp.

The thing is if I did go the local press (not the Financial Times, I doubt they'd want me) I know they'd snap it up. Not because it's an amazing, thrilling tale. Simply because they've got nowt else to publish.

Examples of recent billboard headlines I've seen outside newsagents include:

'Man could have been killed by boiler!'.

The crucial word here is 'could'.

Not 'was' or 'almost' but 'could'. I mean thank heavens he wasn't even injured but generally, every single day there are a lot of things which you could (technically) be killed by. Stray buses, meteors, 13 bottles of vodka in straight succession. They don't generally make headline news unless you are unfortunate enough to meet your end via their means.

More recently we had 'Outrage Over Bingo Gifts!'.

As I was saying, they would take the blog story.

Feeling confused I consulted Husband with the Sad Face.

Me: They are urging me to go the papers with my blog. Other people are, and then they'll get loads of publicity and votes and I won't get my curtains.

HWASF: Well you know what they say?!

Me: Err, no, what?

HWASF: There's no such thing as bad publicity!

Me: I think you'll find that you are actually wrong and there actually is.

HWASF: Like what?

Me: Like the fact we live in a small town which is a hot bed of gossip where I grew up, my parents still live and everyone talks about everyone. I REALLY don't want all my dad's mates down the pub talking about the time his daughter (i.e. me) burnt off her pubic hair with toxic chemicals, wrestled with a dead badger, weed in the turn-up of her trousers, got sent to live in a mental home, stole the church Christmas tree and overdosed on dog hormone tablets (albeit not at the same time).

HWASF: Hmmmmm (looking thoughtful).

Me: PLUS everyone will find out about the incident with the used chutney knife, the time he strangled my brother for 'putting a log on the fire like a dick' (see here) and the fact he tried to make me dress in used Asda bags to stop me getting hit by a car.

HWASF: Hmmmmm (looking even more thoughtful).

Me: PLUS this blog contains blasphemy, refrences to vaginas (haunted and otherwise), innuendo, disrespectful remarks about small children AND cruelty to (albeit dead) animals. The letters page of the local paper would go bonkers. Someone changing the sequencing of the traffic lights on the industrial estate generates an entire page of letters for 13 weeks on the trot. People write in about the number of dead headghogs they've seen and how it's a harbinger to the end of times. There is a 4 month debate going on about where the bench has gone from the old shopping centre and where are the infirm going to sit down now? People send in passages from the bible with no other explanation, just a name underneath AND THEY PUBLISH THEM. A link to this blog would - well they'd never get over it!! People would start to spontaneously combust.

HWASF: Ok, you have a point........

So I won't be going to the local paper. Well not without a disguise. And I need a disguise anyway because this whole Blog contest ends in an AWARDS CEREMONY no less and as I don't get out enough, love a good knees up and haven't been to an Awards Ceremony since I attending the South Somerset Schoolboy Motocross Winter Championship Awards in 1990 (where I received a pineapple, fresh, from none other than Dicky Dye, a man so un-famous there's not even a Wiki page about him). And let's face it - I'm not exactly going be invited to the Oscars.

Maybe I could emulate 'Bucket Head' - the legendary guitarist?



Then again, I'm not known as Bucket Head but Stickhead - so that would mean my disguise would need to involve a pile of sticks. Something like this perhaps:


Although I might struggle with that on the dance floor.

Suggestions for my disguise welcome, just don't tell my mum or she will resurect the lacewing costume (see here).

Having said that, even Belle de Jour came out in the end......

(p.s if the people organising the awards ceremony are reading this, could you make sure they've got Strongbow behind the bar? I'm gonna need it......).

9 comments:

  1. Knickers to the press....hold out for the book deal.....talk to Wife in the North!!!!
    Love Lou xx

    (remember me when you're even MORE famous.... yeah I know, NO CHANCE...)

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  2. You are talking in code! We really are under cover aren't we?

    Yeah if they gave me a book deal they could have me any way they wanted - minus a KFC bucket, minus a log pile, minus my clothes...actually no, the book needs to sell.

    Of course I will remember you - I love reading about your cocks (snort).

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  3. Very funny, I have tried to get publicity and have so far managed...nowt. I might set myself on fire outside a newsagents

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  4. Well Mr Shev, that should work but you would be hideously maimed and/or dead so it might take the shine off your nomination slightly. But hey, we must suffer for our art.... Alternatively just call up the paper and inform them your boiler could have killed you and you think the prizes down the Bingo are crap and VOILA - headline news without 3rd degree burns!

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  5. well you've got my vote.
    This post had me peeing my pants. No surprise with your nomination then.

    http://marketingtomilk.wordpress.com

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  6. Great to see you marketingtomilk (although I'm guessing that isn't your real name..). Thanks for your vote!!

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  7. When you win The Mads, you will be snapped up by national press. The Guardian Family section is definitely for you.

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  8. I have a really great idea, I will pretend that you are my gimp. You can come to The MADs in full gimp mask and catsuit and nobody will know what you look like!

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  9. I'm fine with the gimp mask but I'll have to think long and hard before donning a catsuit....

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